TREASURER Reg Oxby painted a rosy picture of Wellington FC’s finances at its annual meeting.

He revealed to members in the clubhouse on Wednesday that the club had made a working profit of £8,700 over the past year despite spending almost as much again on improving facilities on its building in North Street and £5,000 on new kit.

“Obviously, if we had not spent this amount the profit would have been much more,” he said.

Mr Oxby, who has been treasurer for six years and a committee member for 15 years, said the club lost money on a regular basis when it paid players. He told me: “We don’t pay players and I personally cannot see the time when we will pay players again. We now have a lot of local players playing first team football and that can only be a good thing.

“We run 28 teams – five adult, ten youth and 13 under 12 sides. That’s an awful lot of teams to look after a season and they all have to be insured. We also have to find kit for them every three years and we had to do this year.”

Club chairman Mike Hall told members at the meeting: “The youth section continues to flourish and we are now providing football in Wellington for boys and girls at every age group from u8 to u18.

“Turning to our senior teams, the Ladies have shown that they are capable of competing in Division One of the Somerset County League and they should be justly proud of this achievement.

“Moving to the men’s section, our third team rallied after a challenging start and showed over the second part of the season that they are easily capable of progressing through the lower divisions of the Devon and Exeter League whilst providing a positive environment for the development and growth of our younger and less experienced players.

“It is fair to say that the Reserves struggled to reach the heights of previous seasons in terms of development and results but maybe this is only to be expected when you look at the number of players who have progressed to the first team over the last two years.

“More than 50 per cent of our first team squad now consists of home grown players and this represents a great achievement for all those involved in formulating and delivering our playing strategy/vision over the last three years.”

Officers elected included: Chairman Mike Hall; vice chairman Graham Aspin; secretary David Derrick; treasurer Reg Oxby; membership secretary Jane Brown; clubhouse managers Reg and Jenny Oxby; welfare officer and youth co-ordinator Colin Waller.